Whether you’re reading a riveting novella, an insightful piece of long-form journalism, or the latest post from your favourite blogger, the written word has the ability to capture the imagination and make long, tedious journeys just slip away. In modern times, though, reading has become more than just words on a page or screen. A plethora of apps is available to make books more social, and news better suited to your interests.

To narrow down your options only to those that are worthy of a download, I’ve compiled a list of the most innovative social reading and news recommendation apps that the Play Store has to offer.

Christmas morning is here and we all feel the same excitement while rushing to check the gifts under the tree. As geeks and technology addicts, we’re hoping for gadgets and more gadgets, especially the Android kind. We’re not picky either, we’ll take anything from a phone to a tablet, an NVIDIA Shield, or an Android TV Stick.

If you’re lucky enough to be a recipient of such gear, you’re certainly excited to set it up and load it with excellent apps and games. Or maybe, this is your first foray into the Android ecosystem and you have no idea how and where to get started. That’s why we’ve combed through the hundreds of posts we published this year to roundup the best content for you.

From apps to games, how-tos, and opinions, you’ll find enough articles here to last you weeks. So get your browser tabs ready for an onslaught of articles, press that power button on your shiny new gadget and follow us down this wonderfully geeky journey. But keep in mind that we are not responsible for the amount of time you spend glued to your screen and away from your family today!

As part of my new fitness routine that involves starting a C25K program, I have also taken up sit-ups and squats. The reason I picked these two exercises is that I have improved the strength of my arms and legs a lot with running and swimming, but my core, back and quads are still in deplorable shape. I could easily try to do short series of sit-ups and squats, but I was in no way able to go beyond 30 or 40 without feeling like my muscles were being ripped apart.

So similarly to my running training, I turned to my phone and the Play Store to find apps that would help me gradually increase my strength and improve my endurance. I was instantly drawn to Runtastic Sit-Ups Pro and Runtastic Squats Pro, not only because of the big brand name behind them, but also because of the apps’ design and features. It was an excellent choice and I’ll explain below why Runtastic’s suite should be on your phone too if you are interested in fitness.

There’s no question that smartphones and tablets have become by far the biggest gaming platform in the world, surpassing dedicated gaming devices with the sheer size of their user base and gaming software on offer. However, it is worth considering that the Google Play store is an environment which creates only a few gaming mega-hits per year, with many hopeful, worthy titles quickly fading into obscurity.

For an independent game developer, these struggles for exposure are often insurmountable. Google’s openness and transparency regarding app download figures provides a sobering — and often depressing — insight into these difficulties, with many games boasting a shocking lack of players. Here, we have collated 7 very worthwhile gaming experiences on Android that have most definitely flown under your — and almost everyone else’s — radar, but are well worth playing.

I’m usually a sloppy Christmas shopper. I wait until the last few days to get any presents, mostly because I never know what to gift anyone. This year however marked a huge improvement as I had my Christmas shopping done by the 5th of December.

If you’re not as lucky and you still have some gift shopping left for your friends, family members, partners, and you know them to be Android fans, I have compiled this list of great last-minute gift ideas. As a big Android fan, I guarantee I’d be happy with any item mentioned below.

The Christmas spirit kicks in at different time for different people, but one surefire way to make it kick in is to “deck the halls” of your Android device, which will be a breeze to do with these apps, wallpapers and ringtones!

In this roundup, I have collected the finest HD wallpapers, apps and ringtones that the web has to offer so you can easily have your pick of the best for your Android device. All of the below wallpapers are 1080P, and so should look stunning on devices with HD displays!

It’s the last month of the year and the time when companies refrain from pushing new products or ideas to avoid being neglected in the midst of the holiday rush. But over on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, entrepreneurs are fearless and confident, launching new projects and hoping to get your attention with their innovative products.

In the following post, I will take a look at the most original projects that you can pledge for this month, then list others that are also worth looking at. Read on to discover them all, and keep in mind that, as with any crowd-funded project, you have to exercise your better judgement and no outcome is really guaranteed.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the Android ecosystem thus far has been a lack of great apps for writers. Maybe it’s because that’s what I do for a living and I can’t see past my own professional needs, but it’s been a thorn in my side since I started playing with Android in 2010. But over the past year, the ecosystem has made some remarkable progress, and writers haven’t been left as wanting as they were in the past.

I personally prefer Markdown as a writing method, which uses a simple syntax that makes typing HTML a lot easier. It’s been my preferred syntax for almost two years now, and I’ve been waiting for Android to catch up with iOS’s barrage of Markdown editors. At the same time as Android has been catching up, I’ve been asked if I could round up a few of my current favourite apps. Here are five of them.

This week rings the start of the holiday season and the shopping ordeal that comes with it. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday to the Christmas presents, everyone will be running around against the clock trying to find the best deals and gift items.

Last year, we covered some great apps for last-minute holiday shopping, but as Android grew and garnered more apps over the past twelve months, many new and cool contenders rose up, so it’s time we added more apps to that list.

Unless you’re a radio producer, the days of needing dedicated voice recorders are long behind us. Mobile phones and tablets have built-in microphones that are perfectly acceptable for private use in listening back on interviews, meetings, lectures, or random musings. And they even tend to do alright nowadays with music at concerts.

But to get good-quality audio, you still need to do some tweaking. And there are apps for that. I’ve searched high and low for the best advanced audio recording apps, all of which include powerful features that help you get the sound just right. If you only want to record quick voice memos, these will all be overkill, but for the professionals who need clear, crisp audio on a budget, they might be just the ticket.(more…)